Leach, Frenship in dispute over fee for records

Lawyers for a local school district want Mike Leach's legal team to pay nearly $10,000 for a massive stack of documents relating to Tommy Tuberville and his children.

Frenship Independent School District attorneys are billing Leach for the time they spent compiling and reviewing some 17,000 pages of records he requested through a subpoena.

Both sides are awaiting District Judge Bill Sowder's decision on an FISD request to deny Leach some of the documents about the new Texas Tech coach and his children.

The district claims some of the records contain sensitive information protected by federal privacy laws, but it has already turned over many less-sensitive records to Leach after spending a large amount of time and effort complying with his request, district officials said.

Leach attorney Ted Liggett said the subpoena aims to determine whether Tuberville, Leach's successor, contacted the district about enrolling his children prior to Leach's firing.

But Liggett said the enormous volume of the records baffles him, and he has asked Sowder to waive the roughly $9,800 fee.

"I've never seen a non-party (not directly involved in the lawsuit) ask for costs in this manner," Liggett said. "They were contacted before Mike was fired, or they weren't. That's all we want to know."

The school district complied with most of Leach's requests on March 18 by releasing reams of records to him, said David Backus, an attorney for the district.

It sent a smaller set of the federally protected records to Sowder for review.

Most the documents already handed over to Leach are e-mails sent or received by district employees - from teachers to staff to administrators - that mention Tuberville in any way. Backus said this includes forwarded articles and other electronic announcements by the university's athletic department.

"There are apparently many employees who are Texas Tech fans," he said.

Backus said his firm spent "an incredible amount of time and effort" complying with the subpoena by pooling all these documents. It then spent hours more adhering to state open records laws by conducting a time-intensive, page-by-page review of the records to redact confidential information like private e-mail addresses for non-district employees.

Liggett said his office has

received about 200 pages of documents.

Because of the sheer volume of FISD e-mail correspondence about Tuberville, Backus said, Leach's team may review the remainder of them at his law firm's office.

There's no word yet on when Sowder will decide if the district can disclose the rest of the information to Leach.

Tech fired the coach in December amid allegations he mistreated an injured player.

Leach denies any wrongdoing and is suing the university for breach of contract and defamation.

The bitter legal battle heated up two weeks ago with videotaped sworn testimony from some of the case's key players, including Leach and Tech Chancellor Kent Hance.

More depositions are scheduled to begin during the next few weeks, Liggett said. Athletic Director Gerald Myers, Tech President Guy Bailey and Tech Regent Jerry Turner are all scheduled to give their testimony between now and April 13.

Larry Anders, chairman of Tech's Board of Regents, gave his testimony Tuesday in Dallas.